Eryngium ovinum

Blue Devil at Mount Majura

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Identification history

	Eryngium ovinum	10 May 2024	Tapirlord
	Eryngium ovinum	9 May 2024	Avery

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User's notes

This picture was taken Dec 15 2023, and shows some of a group of 4 blue devils going blue at the tips, without having produced any seedpods. By Dec 22, 2 of them were dead above ground, and eventually all 4, without ever producing any seedpods. Neither did any others in the area (western edge of the reserve, more or less on the border with Hackett) produce a single pod, so what happened? A dry period at a crucial time in Spring perhaps? They looked pretty normal up to late October (biggest one was c. 24cm Oct 23).

2 comments

waltraud wrote:

10 May 2024

I don't know Avery; it was a bad Devil year at the Fair too. Perhaps you are right with lack of rain in crucial spring time. Even the Devils in the fenced seed nodes were unhappy and died off without producing seeds. Outside the fenced seed nodes I noticed zilch even where there was recruitment before such as Eryngium ovinum (Blue Devil)

Avery wrote:

10 May 2024

Meanwhile the one I bought from Cool Country Natives last year has remained alive in my front garden, although no seedpods (I don't know whether that is normal). I guess we'll find out in about 2 months whether there has been a mass dieoff, or if they just decided that it wasn't worth trying to reproduce this year.

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